Bella's Joke
by morrellifan2005
Summary: Stephanie aggravates Grandma Bella once too often.


**_This takes place before Hard Eight_**

**Challenge #: 68**  
**Author: Brigid**  
**Title: Bella's joke**  
**Rating:** (PG)  
**Spoilers/Warnings: none**

Stake-outs are the pits. You sit around all night and wait for a loser to show up. If he does you have about a 50 chance of grabbing him, taking him in and collecting your fee. Well, I have about a 50 chance. See, I'm a bounty hunter, one of the world's worst bounty hunters. I mean, I always get my man but sometimes it takes a lot out of me. My cars explode, my apartment gets invaded, my life gets threatened, my hamster gets attacked; actually Rex can take care of himself pretty well.

My name is Stephanie Plum and tonight I hate my job. My partner is Lula and part of the problem tonight is that Lula has already eaten all the food we brought along for the stake-out. Well, okay, I helped little. But I would have thought a box of donuts, a dozen Tastycakes, a pizza and a six-pack of Coke would have lasted longer than 3 hours. Now, I was getting antsy, I needed to pee, I was bored and the damn skip still hadn't shown up.

I had been thoroughly pissed off before we even began the evening. See, I have this boyfriend, Joe Morrelli. It's an on-again, off-again relationship and currently we were mostly on but we'd kind of gotten engaged and now we were really dragging our feet about setting a wedding date. Well, we'd set one and then cancelled it and now we were hesitant to set another because I'm not sure either one of us really wanted to get married. I'd tried it once, it didn't take. Joe had never tried it but I was pretty sure that as long as the perks were there he didn't care if it came with a ring or not.

But that's not why I was pissed. Joe and I had an understanding, mostly. It was our mothers who were not so understanding. My mother considered Joe my last hope at a home and family. Mrs. Morrelli considered me a poor choice on Joe's part but if that was what he wanted, she wouldn't exactly stand in the way. Joe's Grandma Bella considered me an abomination, a pox, a boil on the butt of humanity. I don't know why but whenever we got together it was never a pretty picture. She had visions and I usually wound up dead or burned to a crisp in her visions. So I was expecting the worse when I ran into her at Giovancini's deli today. She was picking up lunch meat and I was getting sandwiches to take back to the office.

Grandma Bella looked straight at me, daring me to flinch, which, I'm proud to say, I didn't. "You, you are a tease. You lead my Joseph on but you never commit to him. He wants a family, he wants babies but all you want is a man to warm your bed."

Needless to say, I was shocked. Grandma Bella had never been so blunt before. "Grandma," I started.

"No, no more excuses. Tonight you must tell my Joseph when you will marry him."

"I'm sorry, Grandma Bella, I'm not going to see Joe tonight. I have to work."

"You will be sorry. Tonight you need to tell him or you will be sorry. I have the eye."

Mrs. Morrelli came in the shop and saw us glaring at each other. "Stephanie," she began warily, "how are you, dear? We haven't seen much of you lately."

"I'm fine, Mrs. Morrelli," I answered through gritted teeth.

Mrs. Morrelli looked at her mother-in-law and then at me. "Mother, we need to go now. Say good-bye to Stephanie."

"Don't forget, tonight, or there will be consequences." Mrs. Morrelli looked perplexed but decided to just lead Grandma Bella away before I socked her.

So now it was _tonight, _no wedding date was set and I was sitting in the car with Lula, not Joe, on a stake-out, shaking in my boots. Yeah, I really had to pee.

"Suppose we wait outside the car for a while?" I ventured to ask Lula.

"Huh?" she mumbled.

I knew it, she was cat-napping. "Lula!" I hissed, "Wake up! This is a stake-out, not naptime!"

"I wasn't asleep. I was just restin" my eyes." Lula yawned largely and favored me with an accusatory look. "You're the one who didn't stock enough food for this stake-out."

"I brought plenty of food; you just ate it all too fast." I answered angrily.

A knock on the window caused us both to jump and me to nearly wet my pants. Cautiously I rolled the window down and found Ranger staring at me with a slightly irritated look on his gorgeous face. Those huge chocolate eyes…. _don't go there, Steph. _

"Um… yo?"

"Babe"

"What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm staking out a skip."

He raised an eyebrow. "Name?"

"Mark Jackson. Why?"

"Lookin' for Dwight Pawalski. He's a mean one."

"Dealer?"

"Yep."

I sighed. One word conversations seemed to take longer than usual conversation and were far less satisfying. "Jackson is a user. That's his girlfriend's house. We figured he hadn't had any in a while and would come looking for love in all the wrong places so we staked her out."

He raised an eyebrow, _damn, I wish I could do that, _"Deal going down tonight. Go home."

"No way, this guy is next month's rent. I'm not going home."

Ranger didn't look happy but his next comment was way-laid by the sound of a ruckus behind the house. Ranger took off running and so did Lula and I, once we got out of the car. Needless to say we were quite a ways behind.

The house was backed up to a shallow, wooded area. It looked to be about 500 feet deep and fairly dense. A good protection against noise and the trees really helped with New Jersey air. A built in filter system. Surprisingly they looked fairly healthy until we got to the middle. There was a clearing, about 10 feet by 10 feet. It showed the remains of a fire and Ranger stood there with Tank looking perplexed. Not his usual look.

"What happened?" I asked.

"They disappeared."

"Disappeared? Like in vanished, no longer visible, _Beam me up, Scotty_ type disappeared?"

Ranger gave me a peculiar look but he answered, "Disappeared. Like in they're not here."

I started to say, "Did you check out the rest of the woods?" but I knew he hadn't because I was standing there watching him. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off the stones and ashes of the fire. I started to get chills. My spidey-sense was going crazy and I wanted to say something but I didn't know what to say. And I wanted to get out of there.

"Well," I started as I eased away slightly, "we'd better get going, it's midnight and uh… I've got to get Lula home… and …"

Words left me as a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere and struck the circle of rocks…

I opened my eyes and looked around to see Lula and Ranger and another woman slowly struggling to their feet. I was lying on my back on the ground in the middle of the woods. Why was I lying on my back in the middle of the woods? Oh yeah, skip, lighting… passed out… shit. Slowly I sat up and realized that it was taking a lot more effort than usual and Lula was looking at me very strangely. Her mouth was wide open and she was gaping at me. Gaping isn't a good look for Lula but the horror on her face caused me to look down at myself. I figured there must be a bullet hole somewhere. Instead there was pecs the size of New Jersey under a black t-shirt complemented by back cargo pants and size 14 combat boots.

"What the hell?" I had spoken out loud and the voice that came out was loud, and low and very decidedly male. It was Tank's voice. "Oh, my God! Oh shit! Where am I? What happened?" It's very hard to dance around and scream in a 250 pound body. I looked at the other woman who was looking steadily at me and realized that I was looking at myself. _How did I get over there?_ I shook my head and started to feel very dizzy.

Then I heard my own voice saying, "Sit down and put your head between your knees. If you pass out we'll never get you up." So I sat or really slumped to the ground. Cool hands forced my head down and I breathed to the sound of my own voice saying, "In and out, long slow breaths, you'll be fine. Just give it a minute." And after a minute I was fine, that is breathing and no longer ready to pass out. But I was still in Tank's body.

When I looked up again there was still horror on Lula's face and actually Ranger didn't look that good either. He was staring at Lula. I looked around at all the faces, including my own and said, "What the hell is going on here?"

My face looked back at me and my voice asked, "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" I shrieked. "I'm Stephanie and what the hell are you doing with my body?"

"Ranger." My body answered and then looked to Ranger. "Who are you?"

Ranger was definitely freaking out. I'd never seen Ranger freak out before but his head was bobbing back and forth and he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water and sputtering and it was quite a site to see.

"Ranger, what's wrong?" I asked. He was starting to scare me.

My own voice answered, "I'm here, Steph, and I'm guessing that's Lula." He pointed to the rock hard body that I had wet dreams about and that body promptly passed out.

Lula caught him on the way down. She looked at me, er… my body and asked, "Boss?"

"Yeah," I… he… she answered.

"What happened?" Lula asked.

"Tank?" My voice inquired. Lula nodded.

"I don't know. Recon." Ranger apparently gave one word commands too.

Lula nodded and carefully laid Ranger's body on the ground, only it was really Lula in Ranger's body wasn't it? I went over to … Lula… and tried rubbing her hands and lifting her legs to get some blood flowing back to her brain… or Ranger's brain. I mean, just how much of our bodies had switched? This was strange, very, very strange. Lula/Ranger was just coming around when Lula uh… Tank… uh.. the other two walked back.

"No sign of anyone," Ranger/ I said.

"What are we going to do?" My pitiful question coming out in Tank's deep voice sounded more like a whine than anything else.

Ranger tried to put his fingers through my hair but it was caught up in a pony tail under my Seals hat. He looked at his hand and then down at his/ my chest and then…

"Don't get any ideas," I warned.

My answer was a cock-sure grin. "Who me?" Then he shook off his smile and said, "Let's go back to the Rangeman building and try to figure something out."

"Shouldn't we just go home and sleep and hope it's all straightened out when we wake up?"

"No," Ranger answered forcefully, "I think we all need to stay together. I think that's crucial to getting it straightened out. Let's just go back to the office."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere until I pee. I can't wait any longer." Apparently the urge to pee was transferred with my consciousness or maybe it was just nerves. "We need to find a gas station, close!"

Ranger looked at me peculiarly, "Just go out in the woods and pee, Babe."

"What?" I screamed. "I'm not going to pee in the woods, that's just unsanitary and yucky." I was a city girl, born and bred, no peeing in the woods for me.

A raised eyebrow caused me to reconsider… well, maybe I did have the right equipment to try it. So I humphed away to stand behind a wide tree…and I started to unzip Tank's pants and then it came to me what I was doing. I was going to have to touch Tank's … "Ranger!" I screamed again.

He came around the tree. "What?"

"I don't know how… I mean… does it work any differently? Can I use it without touching it?" I heard Lula groaning and could only imagine what was going in Tank's mind.

Ranger saw little humor in the situation. "Babe, just whip it out, point and shoot. Shake it off and stick it back in." He turned to go but turned back with an afterthought. "Be careful with the zipper."

And so I peed standing up for the first time in my life and I carefully tucked Tank's little friend away, still shuddering, and went back to the group. I was trying to act nonchalant but the look of pain on Lula's face told me this had been a very traumatic experience for Tank.

We rode back to the Rangeman building in total silence, at least those of us in Big Blue rode in total silence. I'm sure the night man thought it was very strange that Stephanie and Lula were in Ranger's truck, leading the way, and Ranger and Tank were in Big Blue with Tank driving. It was a very strange procession that made its way to the 5th floor conference room with Stephanie in the lead.

Carrying on a conversation proved to be a challenge. We were all talking at once and trying to figure out who we were talking to was a nightmare. Ranger finally said, "Shut up" in his best Burg housewife voice. _Who knew? I guess I could be a good Burg housewife someday._ He went over to the table by the door and fished out a package of nametags. As we all silently watched he made one for each of us and told us to put them on.

I looked around the table and cringed. My body said "Ranger", Lula's body said "Tank", Ranger's body was shaking all over and said "Lula." My own nametag was dwarfed by the size of Tank's chest. This was the shits.

Ranger took over the meeting. "Any ideas?"

We solemnly shook our heads. Well, maybe I had one. "Uh…" Ranger raised one eyebrow at me. _Why the hell couldn't I make my face do that when I was in it?_ "I had a little discussion with Joe's Grandma Bella yesterday morning." I told them the story of my encounter.

Lula asked, "Are we going to have to stay like this?"

"I don't know. I have no idea how far Grandma's powers reach." I looked around at all of… us and asked, "What are we going to do?"

Ranger sighed. "We're going to get some rest. It's nearly 2 a.m. We'll try again in a few hours."

"Where do you suggest we sleep?" I asked cautiously.

He thought a second and then responded succinctly, "Shit."

In the end, we all went up to Ranger's apartment on the 7th floor. "The batcave?" I asked.

"No, just an apartment. I keep one in all of my office buildings." Rats. I could see Lula looking around. It was obvious that she was thinking the same thing I was. There really wasn't room for all of us to sleep here. Tank offered to go down and use his own apartment but he shared with Cal and that would put Lula's body in close proximity to Cal. It would be difficult to make Cal understand that this wasn't necessarily a good thing. We abandoned that plan.

"Alright," Ranger began again, "there's a perfectly good bed in the bedroom and the sofa makes out into a bed so we'll just all stay here."

"Who's gonna sleep with who?" Lula asked cautiously.

Ranger looked at Lula and looked at me. That thought obviously made him cringe. He looked at Tank who held his hands out in a helpless gesture and shook his head. "Tank, uh… Steph and I will sleep in here. Tank, you and Lula, take the couch. It's king-size. There should be plenty of room. Don't touch anything. And Lula, that means you."

"I'm not messing with no men's parts. I mean, I done it before but they was attached to a man. I'm not interested in messing with any men parts that are attached to me. No way. And I sure as hell ain't messing with anything you got to offer." The look she gave Tank would have scared me shitless if I hadn't been already so scared I couldn't think.

So we passed the night. We took turns in the bathroom. Long turns. I think a lot more exploring was going on than anyone was admitting to. Ranger offered Tank and I t-shirts to sleep in. Tank was going to refuse but thought better of it. I showered but put Tank's shirt back on. Ranger's wasn't going to fit.

Ranger and I climbed into opposite sides of his bed and lay there staring at each other. "This is really bizarre."

"Yeah," he agreed. In spite of everything, we slept.

The alarm went off at 6:00. Not near enough sleep for me. My first words were, "I'm not running."

I could hear Ranger laugh, but it sounded funny, familiar but funny. I opened one eye and I was looking at myself. "Shit. This wasn't just a bad dream, was it?"

"Sorry, Babe."

We dressed separately in yesterday's clothes. A lovely woman named Ella brought us a large, healthy breakfast. "What, no donuts?" I asked.

She smiled sweetly, "Why, Tank, you never eat sweets. This must be a very special occasion." She looked over at Ranger, who was currently wearing Lula's body and Ranger groaned.

We ate in silence, cleared the dishes and sat around the table to discuss our plan. Ranger began. "I have an important business meeting today."

I added, "I've got to get Dougie and Mooner to court and pick up George Reynolds. I'm running out of time on him."

"Well, I'm willing to skip my filing today but somebody needs to call Connie." Lula offered.

Tank remained silent in Lula's body. Maybe that's why it seems so strange.

"Tank," Ranger barked and Lula's body sat up straight and paid attention. "You'll have to go to the meeting. You know the ropes and can make the decisions. Lula, you'll have to go too but don't do anything that Tank doesn't tell you to do and for God's sake, don't sign anything. Can you do that?"

"Sure, I can do that. I'm good at meetings. I'll just sit there and look smart and let Tank do the talking."

"Lula, Tank can't do the talking. You're going to have to rely on signals. You have to do all the talking. Oh man, I wish I could cancel this meeting but these guys all came in from out of town." Ranger was running his hand through his hair… my hair again. I'd never seen him do that. He looked like he was enjoying it, in a sensual kind of way.

"Why don't we all go to the meeting?" I asked.

"It's going to be hard enough to explain why Lula's there. I don't want to have to explain you and Tank too. Clothes. We've got to get Lula some clothes."

"I got clothes!" Lula answered indignantly. Ranger rolled his eyes. Now, that was my way of expressing himself and he was clearly borrowing it.

He looked at me, "Call out to a dress shop somewhere fast and get a business suit, a conservative business suit, shoes, whatever Tank needs delivered here pronto."

I must have looked really confused because he added, "Tank has got to look like part of my legal team for this meeting."

"Okay," I answered and in my best business like voice called Lane Bryant and ordered a black suit, size 24, white blouse, black panty hose and size 10 black pumps delivered immediately. I also ordered the appropriate underpinnings since I was pretty sure Lula didn't have any on right now.

When I got off the phone, Lula was mad, really mad. "I'm no size 24! What are you talkin' about? I'm a 12. Now you just get back on that phone and tell them I'm a size 12."

"Lula," I sighed, "a size 12 in spandex isn't going to translate into a size 12 in a business suit."

Lula pouted and I must admit, Ranger does a cute pout, but she agreed to allow her body to be dressed in a size 24. I'm just praying it fits.

Ranger looked at me next, "What time do Dougie and Mooner have to be in court?"

"2:00."

"Okay, that gives us plenty of time. Let's get Lula dressed and hope Tank's clothes arrive pretty damn quick." I could see that Ranger was getting nervous and for some reason it touched me. Batman does have nerves.

"Yes, and they're on their last thread," he murmured as he went into his bedroom to get a suit for Lula. ESP still works okay.

Together Ranger and I dressed Tank and Lula to pose as Ranger and a big shot lawyer. It was awkward. I knew I was helping Lula's body get ready (the 24 barely fit – we did some very creative pinning) but it was Tank's mind. It was weird, really, really weird.

They went to the meeting and Ranger paced, back and forth for a solid hour. I thought about pacing with him but I have to tell you, pacing in Tank's body was a lot of work. There was just so much of it. So I sat and channel-surfed quietly. I didn't want to spoil Ranger's concentration.

When Lula and Tank returned it was obvious things hadn't gone well. "Report!" Ranger barked.

"She tried to sell the building," Tank murmured.

"What? Why?"

Lula answered, "They made me one hell of an offer! They offered six million dollars for this building. Now I got to tell you, it ain't in the best neighborhood and the outside could use some work. Six million dollars is a good price for this rat trap."

I could tell Ranger was barely holding his temper in check. "This _rat trap_ has two million dollars worth of improvements in it and several million dollars worth of security equipment. This is the hub of my business and most nights where I sleep. It's worth a hell of a lot more than six million dollars to me."

"Well, don't yell at me. Mister fancy business suit over there just kept saying no. Kept saying we weren't in a position to sell right now. Over and over. Humph.!"

"You were there to buy another building in Chicago. What happened with that?"

"Boss…" Tank began.

"That building was in worse shape than this one. Did you see the pictures of it? It looked like it ought to be condemned. You ought to be glad that I stopped you from putting out good money for a fire hazard."

Ranger groaned but Tank hurried to reassure him, "Joe Julius was there. He had the papers but he held on to them. Nothing was signed and Joe told them it was obvious that Mr. Manoso was having a bad day and maybe we'd better try this again tomorrow. He also told them that they could have another night in the Hilton at Rangeman's expense." Who knew Tank had that many words in him?

Ranger looked, no, glared at Lula. "When we get back you and I are going to have a talk. Let's go Steph."

I followed him to the door and heard Lula whining about being hungry. "I'm gonna call and order us a pizza, Tank. Extra cheese and anchovies. What do you want on yours? Will they deliver here?"

The muscles in Ranger's now very pale face were trembling and I could see his eye start to twitch at the thought of his temple being adulterated with anchovies. I ventured a question, "Where are we going?"

"To pick up Dougie and Mooner."

"Can't yet."

A raised eyebrow was my reply.

"We can't pick them up until right at 1:30. That's when Gilligan's Island is over and Dobie Gillis begins. We have to get them before they start on Dobie or it will be 2:00 before they'll budge."

As long as he was already upset, I thought it would be okay to mention that I was hungry too. We were in his Mercedes so it really was a gracious act of friendship for him to silently take his world class car through the drive-in window at McDonald's. We ordered two quarter pounder meals supersized and Ranger actually ate all of his. I was impressed. I guess his body was a temple but mine was up for grabs. I didn't really care about Tank's temple so I ate all of mine too. Now all I needed was a donut.

"No donuts until we're out of this mess."

"How do you do that?" I asked for the hundredth time.

"It's a gift," he grinned.

We reached Mooner and Dougie's house at exactly 1:30. I went in to get them, sort of forgetting about the fact that I was wearing Tank's body. "Hi, guys!" I chirped. Coming from me it would have been a normal greeting, coming from Tank it was frightening. Mooner and Dougie looked terrified.

"Come on, guys," I started again, "it's time to go to court. I… Steph is in the car waiting for you." Warily they looked out the door and Ranger obligingly waved at them. The gesture seemed to calm them somewhat so they willingly accompanied me to the car.

"Like, wow, Steph. What are you doing in such a cool car? This is totally your aura. It feels good." Mooner oozed good vibes and Dougie nodded.

I looked at Ranger, Ranger looked at me. He had no intention of answering that question.

"Laryngitis," I said quickly. "Steph has laryngitis, guys, and it hurts to talk. So we'd better just let her drive." Yeah, or she was gonna bite your heads off…

When we reached the court house I got out of the car with Mooner and Dougie and ordered them to empty their pockers. Ranger stared as various drug paraphernalia was laid in a pile on his previously pristine seat. I shrugged at his death glare and said, "You'd better get it out of sight while I walk the guys in. And we'll need to wait and give them a ride home too." The death glare deepened. I smiled and waved and walked into the courthouse.

Once Doug and Mooner were settled in the court room with instructions not to move I went back out to the car. Joe Morrelli was leaning against the window making every attempt to carry on a conversation with a very tight-lipped Ranger. Joe frowned when he saw me walk up.

"Tank, I guess I didn't expect to see you here."

"Riding shotgun today." I answered.

Joe nodded and went back to his conversation. "What about tonight, Cupcake? There's a Rangers game on and I'll bring home subs." Ooh… I'd love a Pino's sub and a comfy night in front of a Rangers game. Wait, no, he didn't want to spend the night with Tank, he wanted to spend it with Stephanie and that wasn't going to work at all. How in the hell was I going to get out of this?

"Laryngitis," I said brusquely.

"What?" Joe looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Laryngitis, Steph has laryngitis. She needs to go home and go to bed."

"Well, I can take care of that too." Joe was starting to look angry.

"No but thanks," Ranger ground the words out. "I need to get some rest alone." His voice actually did sound raspy. Probably fury leaking out.

"Okay," Joe relented and leaned in to kiss Ranger.

Ranger pulled his head back quickly and said, "Germs."

Joe looked astonished and I knew it was going to take a lot of donuts and a lot of explanation to get out of this mess. And I couldn't even tell him the truth. Thank God for the superheroes! Mooner and Dougie emerged from the court house and climbed into the car. Ranger nodded at Joe and drove off leaving him standing in the middle of the street. Shit, this was going to take a lot more than donuts.

We dropped Dougie and Mooner off with little fanfare. Ranger was tempted not to give them back their stash but I was able to persuade him. We were making our way back to Rangeman when my phone rang, really my phone, not Tank's. Ranger answered it. "Yo." Well, it takes a while to get used to someone else's telephone manners. He looked perplexed. "You want to talk to Stephanie? This is Stephanie." He listened for another minute and silently handed me the phone.

"Hello?"

A shrill, old voice with an Italian accent answered me, "Well, how do you like my little joke?"

"I knew you had something to do with this. Fix it! Now!"

"Are you going to marry my Joseph?"

"No! I'm not going to marry Joe or anyone, any time soon! Now change us back!"

Ranger was looking at me pleadingly. No, not even for him would I marry Joe on a threat from his grandmother. "No, Bella, no deal. Now, how do I get out of this body?"

"There's a lesson to be learned here. I have the eye."

"Bella, please, just change us back." Okay, so I wasn't above begging.

"Have you learned your lesson?"

"Yes, I've learned my lesson." Who the hell cares what lesson? At least I've learned not to piss off old Italian grandmothers.

"Same place, same time, tonight." She hung up.

I shut off the phone and looked at Ranger. "She said: same place, same time, tonight."

Ranger nodded and we headed back for the Rangeman building. We could hear the argument long before we reached the 7th floor apartment.

Ranger's voice was loud and had lost all of its sense of humor. "I'm hungry and I want food now and I want out of this building and I want out now! I'm not a prisoner. I got things to do, places to go, people to see. I don't like being locked up."

Lula's voice answered with the same degree of acerbity, "I don't care what you want. As long as you're in Ranger's body you're not going anywhere."

"I can come and go as I please. These merry men ain't gonna know the difference. I'll just walk out of here."

"You ain't going anywhere." Lula's voice was firm.

"Well, just what are you gonna do about it?"

"I'm going to sit on you."

Well, that was a picture that worth seeing so Ranger and I opened the door and walked in.

Lula looked glad to see us, Tank looked relieved. "Boss. You're back."

Ranger nodded and looked at Lula. His body was already starting to look a little worse for the wear. The always neat hair was loose and running wild. The black dress pants and gray shirt and tie had been traded in for jeans and an orange t-shirt. It was obvious that Lula had been eating all day and the temple had been violated more than once.

"Lula," his voice, my voice, was calm and authoritative. "Where the hell did you get that shirt?"

"It's one of Tank's. I went down and checked out his digs. He's got a lot more color in his wardrobe than you!"

Ranger leveled a death glare on Tank who was still dressed in the business suit. "Boss, all I can say is it takes a hell of a lot longer to get in and out of these clothes and going to bathroom is a royal pain. When I got out she was gone. I had to call downstairs to find out where she was and they weren't too anxious to cooperate. You have free run. They don't know what to make of her at all."

"Lula, do you have something you want to say?"

"Yeah, I got something I wanna say. I want my own body back. I'm starvin' here. He ain't fed my body anything but health food all day. No donuts, no Tastycakes, no meatball subs. He had a tofu sandwich for lunch. A freakin' tofu sandwich. I need nourishment. I need grease and sugar. I need out of this apartment and out of this body." Lula was on a roll.

Ranger looked at me for support. I shrugged. I had no complaints. Ranger had fed my body pretty good today. But I took the lead anyway, "Lula, I think we're going to get out of this mess at midnight tonight. Your body can hold up till then. I'm sure it seems worse than it is." I was trying for soothing. Coming out of Tank's mouth it sounded ridiculous.

"You listen to me, maybe your skinny white ass can get used to all this shit, but a full-size woman needs to be sure she gets enough nourishment or bad things happen. Bad things." I nodded knowingly, she'd completely lost me with logic and now I just wanted to fend off the hysteria. An hysterical Lula in Ranger's body was something no one wanted to risk.

Ranger intervened. "I'll call and order supper and I'll make sure that Tank eats it. Then we'll head back to woods. I just hope that old bat wasn't lying to us." Ranger moved into the bedroom and I assumed he was going to the bathroom. Tank had brought up clean clothes for me too so I went in to change. I was astounded to find Ranger standing in his bedroom in my underwear checking out the merchandise.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I yelled and it came out a lot louder from Tank's mouth.

He turned and grinned at me, all 200 watts. "Just thought I'd see if it was all worth waiting for."

"You've got a long wait, Batman, now just keep your hands to yourself." It didn't help, he was still grinning. He went into the bathroom while I changed. We ordered food and Lula watched every bite that Tank took.

A few minutes before midnight we were back at the old house, in the woods standing around the ring of rocks that had held the fire. We were very careful to stand in the same order as before and we waited nervously. There was a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightening at midnight. We were ready but that didn't stop us all from passing out again. As I struggled to my feet I looked down, it looked like my body. I copped a feel, yep, 34B, that was me. Tank was checking things out too, his, uh, own things. I smiled, I'd been careful and not too curious. He should have no complaints.

I looked around, "Ranger?" I asked.

"Yo?" came from opposite sides of the fire.

"Oh my God!" I screamed and looked back and forth from Ranger to Lula. "Ranger?"

Ranger looked as startled as I did. "Lula?"

Lula laughed and yelled, "Gotcha! You should a seen yo face. It was perfect! April Fool."

Yes, it was the first of April. Ranger started towards Lula, but I grabbed his arm. "Please don't kill her, think of the paperwork. We all know it would be self-defense, but it would be really hard to explain." He stopped, thank God, cause I would never have had the strength to stop him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I'm ready to go home. Rex hasn't had a decent meal in 24 hours."

He smiled and kissed me on the forehead. You know, even a forehead kiss from Batman can melt your bones. We dropped Lula off then Tank. Tank said he'd meet us at the apartment with old blue. Ranger walked me up to my apartment, picked the lock in less than 30 seconds – I sure hope he teaches me how to do that some day –checked all the closets and under the bed. I fed Rex. He didn't seem to notice that I'd been gone.

We stood at the door, my head on his shoulder, his chin resting on my disheveled curls. Ranger had no idea how to handle curly hair. Guess that's why his is straight.

"I'll call you tomorrow. We'll go get George Reynolds right after I buy my building in Chicago and see how much this delay has cost me."

"You won't call until after 10, right? I plan to sleep until at least 10. And no running." I felt I was in a good bargaining position for some reason. I mean he _had_ taken some liberties.

"Okay, I'll call after 10." A quick kiss and he was gone.

I locked the door and set the chain and glanced at my answering machine. It was blinking like crazy. Oh well, I would take care of them tomorrow. There was however one phone call that needed to be made now! I hit speed dial one. He answered on the 5th ring. "Morrelli, we need to talk. Your grandmother has carried one of her jokes about the "eye" too damn far."


End file.
